Film Review: On The Count of Three, Sundance Film Festival

Jarrod Carmichael’s debut is one that walks a very difficult line between despair and humour, and finds our common humanity in the process. Carmichael deserves commendations for refusing to play it safe in a road-trip movie that is essentially about two best friends who form a suicide pact. This film is not for everyone, as it does deal with depictions and discussions of suicide and various forms of childhood abuse. However, it does ask a question: can you love someone who has been to hell and back more than once, and does it help if you’ve been to hell and back more than once too? Furthermore, what does that love mean at the end of the day?

Carmichael also co-stars as Val, teaming up with the chameleon-like Christopher Abbott who plays his best friend, Kevin. Both young men have their fair share of issues: Val is feeling as if his life has no value with a dead-end job and an inability to communicate with his girlfriend (a small, non-comedic role for Tiffany Haddish). Kevin starts the film institutionalized, and you know it is going well when he documents his prior history of hospitalization since being placed in foster care at age eight.

What begins is an unusual road-trip movie: not about getting laid, laying a relative to rest, or having a layover on Thanksgiving. Rather, this is a road trip intended to allow both Kevin and Val to check things off their ‘bucket list’ as it were. Most involve the attempt to address currently unresolved traumas, such as Val’s abuse at the hands of his father, and Kevin’s abuse at the hands of his psychiatrist (played by Henry Winkler, no less). The chemistry between Kevin and Val is a class in great dialogue writing and genuine chemistry. It is heart-warming to see how the best friends support each other through their various traumas. For example, even a suicidal Kevin urges Val to seek counselling.

There are no less than two dirt bike races in the film, which tells you a lot about the unexpected directions this film takes. These are two friends that love each other through and through, and who try to do the right thing even if they have passed the point of no return.

The marketing department must be having a hard time with this film – I would not know how to advertise it without ruining some of the surprises in store for when you watch the film. On the Count of Three raises questions about mental health, racial profiling, gun control, and childhood abuse while being a fun adventure: this is a sentence I did not see myself writing, but I am glad I have reason to write it.

This is a film that rejects categorization and shows us what it means to be human.

On the Count of Three premiered at Sundance Film Festival January 29, 2021.